sinister71 wrote: My concerns are with the films and what is being presented in them. There is nothing in Tolkien's works to tell us that Azog or Bolg are working for Sauron that I can remember, nothing to say they have supernatural powers, and nothing involving either of them with being zombies. Which if they are it strays from the source material.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien told of the adventure of Bilbo Baggins. During that adventure Gandalf the Gray left the company and gave a general explanation at the end of the tale about what he did while he was gone. Tolkien's stories from the LOTR appendixes and Unfinished Tales expanded on "the rest of the story." Now Peter Jackson is preparing to tell us the full tale in three feature-length films.

There is very little detail in much of Gandalf's side story and since the source book was written as a Children's Tale, it lacked a lot of detail too. So the screenwriters are going to be filling in a lot of blanks with their own inventions. The only point I have made in this thread is that the name 'Necromancer' gives Jackson a lot of latitude when he fills in the evil-doer blanks in the story.